Refinishing

My mother bought this table when I was in middle school and several years ago she passed it on to me. Between my sisters and I, and now my kids, this poor table has been through quite a lot.

A lot of wear and tear and a fair bit of water sitting on the table (my kids used to leave spills for the magic fairy to clean up) and the clear coat broke down. The table was pretty damaged and I considered building a new one.

Here's a wider shot that also shows the water rings, paint spots, and marker streaks that have graced the table over the years.

So I thought maybe I would try to refinish it first and if it didn't work out then I would build a replacement. I bought some Citristrip and liberally sprayed the table then let it sit for about 3 hours. I then came back and scraped off all of the goop (eww), wiped it down, sanded a little, and tried to stain it.

I say tried because what I ended up with was an ugly blotchy mess. I was pretty sure the table was ruined and it's been sitting in my garage for 2 weeks while I was really bummed about the outcome.

Then yesterday I was out in the garage and I noticed that actually the dark spots were the color the stain was supposed to be and the rest was kind of yellow. I realized that the Citristrip must have only taken off part of the clear coat but not all of it. I felt a small glimmer of hope that I had a thick enough veneer left to sand again and restain. I pulled out my mouse sander and went to town. By the time I was done the table was so smooth it felt like butter.

I reapplied stain and, lo and behold, it was a consistent color! I applied two coats yesterday and today I'll add another 2 coats.

It's finally working! I'm not done yet so there's still a chance I'll ruin it but so far I'm really happy with the outcome. The legs will get painted white and I think it will look really nice with the walnut top. Then it will get an absolutely ridiculous amount of poly to be sure that it never looks so sad and abused again.

A Hole in the Wall

I have been dying to cut a hole in this wall for YEARS and I finally got the chance.  The front living room is pretty dark and doesn't get a lot of natural light.  By opening up the wall it brightened it up considerably since the great room has several windows.  It's not a supporting wall so that made this project a whole lot simpler.  I started out by "framing" the opening with painters tape so i could visualize and be sure it was the placement I wanted.

The next step was to cut the power in the wall and let the kids go to town with hammers.  They had a blast beating holes all over it.

This was our first glimpse of the new view from the great room to the office and front living room.  The electrical still needed to be moved into the new header and the plugs needed to be moved into their new placements.

This let so much more light into the rest of the house!  We moved 1 plug to either side of the new opening and put the cables above the new header.

I still need to caulk/paint the trim, texture above the door on this side, and touch up paint on the walls and baseboards.

I also need to cut a piece out of our extra vinyl (left over from when the house was built) to patch in the floor.  The plan is to replace the flooring in the great room fairly soon anyway so it doesn't have to be terribly perfect but I'll try to at least match up the pattern.

And here's a quick Before and After.  I love love love the new doorway.  Of course, now I'm totally itching to case the rest of the doorways in the downstairs (4 of them) but next to removing a wall that will seem simple by comparison.

Be a Fruit Loop

Day 29/31:

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook and it inspired me to turn this picture frame (bought at a thrift store):



Into this:



Also shared at:

Pantry Can Rack

Day 26/31:

I'm blessed to have a large pantry as it allows me to store up on things when they're on sale BUT it also means my pantry can be a disorganized nightmare in which I can't find anything (the more frequent occurrence). One of the biggest problems was that I usually had no idea what canned items I have and which I need to buy so I was constantly either out or overstocked. But now I have a new storage item which ALSO used up part of the scrap pile in my garage so that's even better!

Before (yes I still have a girl scout cookie stock. I try to make them last!):



I made a new rack for the cans out of some scrap MDF, a piece of 1x3, and a couple of 2x2 scraps. I set it up to sit at a 45 degree angle so that it would be easy to see and easy to figure out the angles to cut.



After I built it I did a quick test fit to make sure it would work because, to be honest, I didn't measure the height available on the shelf ahead of time and wanted to make sure it would work before I painted it. Yup, very fly by the seat of my pants and I made this on a whim. So if you had any illusions that I have it all together, um, I don't. I just get lucky a lot, hehe.



And the final painted rack in its new home:



And because I'm feeling particularly brave I will even show you the entire pantry (since I organized it first) but please don't judge the volume of processed food because while I will organize my pantry for you I won't pretend to shop in a way I don't. Please be okay with that, k?

Fish Tank: Painted

Day 25/31:



We inherited a HUGE fish tank and the kids are really excited about it.



But it was about 25 or 30 years old and needed a little bit of love to get it ready.



So last week I got it all sanded down and primed. Friday night I got it painted chocolate brown (I have used this paint on so many projects and I STILL have a half gallon left) but the fun came in last night.



I had an idea to paint fish silhouettes on one of the doors but Husband said it would be so much better if I added a shark to chase them. He was kidding but I decided he was on to something. I played around with ideas in Paint to figure out just how I wanted it to go, using clipart images I googled.



Then I sketched on some paper my shark and a couple of fish. I cut them out to use as templates and traced them with pencil onto the doors.



I used a little black and white craft paint to fill in the lines and done! The fish tank will now fit in with the rest of our somewhat eclectic home just right. I still need to clean the tank out (yuck) but then I can install the whole thing in our entry way. The kids are already arguing about what kind of fish we should get. Since I've never owned fish before I think we're going fresh water as it's easier but I'm open to suggestions. Do you have any big tank wisdom to share? Or an opinion on pretty fish? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

A Face Full of Bugs

Day 24/31:

This is our entryway as of this morning. I wanted a light that made a bit more of a statement and I found the perfect one at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $25. Even better, it was actually brand new!



I bought a recessed light conversion kit so I didn't have to do any major rewiring. You just take out the bulb and the trim there and there is a new piece that goes up that you can wire a light fixture to. One of the steps is "remove the trim from the recessed fixture". It didn't say to duck the mass quantities of bugs that were hanging out in there since this was on a porch light. What you can see in this picture isn't even 1/10th of what awaited me.



Gross! And of course this is about how much hit me in the face (mouth closed, thankfully!) when I pulled it away from the ceiling.



But doesn't this new cover look nice? Ok, kind of boring but you can see that now I have a place to wire the new fixture in after less than 10 minutes of work.



Here's our pretty new light:



And voila! Nice and light and something pretty when you approach the front door. There is more to do out here but this is a pretty good start to it!

Chandelier Redo

Day 16/31:

Since I was working on K's room I installed the new light. I bought it from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore for $5 and gave the shiny brass a coat of creamy spray paint. Then I couldn't help adding a little bling from the dollar store. Totally cheesy and girly and I hope she'll love it.



ps. Like the super fancy paint studio? Haha.